I smiled graciously and hoped that it looked sincere. "I should be delighted to lend you any assistance, Lieutenant. That is, if I may take your invitation to mean that we are no longer in detention?"
"You never were, but my men do have to be careful. Some of the louts are armed and not afraid to shoot. I think they're headed for Suffolk County with their booty."
Or to Finch's farm.
"You've gone over this acreage thoroughly, then?"
"Not quite. Know of any hiding places?"
"These woods," I said truthfully, but vaguely. "But horses would slow them down. If they're in a hurry, then they'll be likely to swing back toward the road."
"Herr Oberleutnant!" Another Hessian rushed away from us, shouting.
"He's spotted them," said the sergeant. He snapped out orders to the men and they spread into the trees. Nash was content to let them do the sweaty work and followed more slowly. He wanted us to come with him.
"I have my rounds to make," Beldon protested, hoping to end the business.
"Won't be long. Best if we all stay together. You don't care to catch a stray bullet if things go badly, do you?"
Beldon did not and we resigned ourselves to Nash's company. He led the way, his stocky, paunchy body moving easily and making his own path. We did the best we could leading the horses. Despite the shade, the heat was worse now. I was damp from face to shanks and a bramble scratch between my sleeve and riding glove was beginning to sting. Nuisance. It was all one foolish, bloody nuisance.
Nash's men had entirely vanished, but I could hear them crashing along. They were headed in the direction of the Captain's Kettle. If the rebels were local-and I was certain they
were-then the kettle would be the first sanctuary they'd think to use.
"Down here! Down here!" one of the Hessians called in the distance. It could only mean that they'd found it. Nash speeded up a little.
Damnation. Not only had the rebels trespassed our land and possibly thrown unwelcome suspicion upon Father, but they'd promptly given away our own best secret. We'd have to think up some other place to hide our stock this year.
Since they knew about the kettle, I suspected the thieves had to be the Finch boys, Roddy and Nathan. I mentioned this in a whisper to Beldon, who reluctantly concurred.
"I hope they have the sense to run," he muttered, his mouth tight and the corners turned down. If caught with the horses they would be hanged. Rebel or no, it was not a fate I could wish upon anybody.
"Mind yourself," I muttered back. If Nash heard him...
Someone fired a gun.
Beldon dropped and I instinctively imitated him. The horrid crash was well ahead of us, though, and isolated. No other shots sounded. Nash urged us to hurry and plunged forward, which struck me as a ridiculously foolish course of action. No soldier, 1. Neither of us were armed. I felt terribly vulnerable.
Hausmann appeared and relayed information to Nash, who understood him.
"Nothing to worry about," he told us. "Fellow tripped on a root. Accidental discharge."
"Thank God for that," Beldon breathed out. He produced his handkerchief and scraped futilely at his streaming forehead. I sighed as well, but my heart wasn't yet ready to retire from the place where it had lodged halfway up my throat. As though reading my thought, Beldon grinned at me. I found myself returning it. That seemed to help.
Nash caught up with some of his men now and questioned them. They were pointing and gesturing. From this I deduced that they'd discovered the kettle and were trying to explain its geography to him. My horse swung his ears forward and neighed. Ahead of us and down, another horse answered. The trees were very thick here. If you weren't careful you could fall right into it. Beldon tied his animal up and walked over to investigate with the others. I did the same and hoped Nash
wouldn't ask me anything awkward.
"Did you know about this?" he demanded, pointing to a break in the trees. From here it was easy to see the drop off.
"Of course I did," I said blandly.
"Just the place for a horse thief to hide, so why didn't you tell me about it?"
"I'm hardly familiar with how a horse thief thinks, Lieu tenant. It never occurred to me to mention it." True enough, "Had your man not given the alarm, I would have taken you here." Blatant falsehood, but hopefully God would forgive me that one.
Nash may have had further comment on the subject, but he was more concerned with retrieving his... king's property. "Well, things have worked out. We got the horses back."
"Won't the thieves be close by, though?"
"That shot seems to have frightened them away. We're safe enough. Come on."
Beldon looked dubious despite Nash's confidence. "As simple civilians, may we be excused from this exercise? I have no desire to inflict any more damage to my clothes than they've already suffered."
Nash gave him a half-amused, half-contemptuous look that professional soldiers reserve for the rest of the world and wen! off after his men.
"You think they're still around?" I asked.
"I do not know. One thing I am sure about is that I should be very reluctant to enter a place like this." He stepped closer to the edge of the kettle and nodded at the woods on the opposite side of the depression. "With all his men down there, any rebels up here would have no trouble pinning them and picking them off as they pleased."
"Shouldn't we warn them?"
"There's probably nothing in it. They're chasing farm lads, not soldiers. I think-"
But I didn't hear the rest of Beldon's opinion. Across the kettle, I caught a glimpse of a pimply face suddenly obscured by a cloud of thick smoke. Roddy Finch, I thought. Of course. He'd be the one to...
Something struck my chest. I was shocked. The only thing I could think of was that for some insane reason Beldon had picked up a stone and smashed it into me with all his strength.
All the breath rushed out and I staggered back from the blow.
Not Beldon. His hands were empty. He wasn't even looking at me; then his head turned, his eyes meeting mine.
Slowly. Slowly.
His normally tranquil expression sluggishly altered to alarm. I saw my name form on his lips, flowing out little by little, one syllable at a time.
My heels caught on something. My legs wouldn't respond. My arms thrashed empty air.
Beldon thrust his hands forward, but was too slow to catch me. I completely lost my balance and dropped. My back struck the earth solidly, driving a last pocket of breath from my lungs.
It dazed me. I'd thumped my skull in the fall. My tongue clogged my throat. I tried to shake my head to one side to dislodge it.
I could not move.
Stunned. Only stunned, that's all. It would pass.
Patches of sky leached through the leaves high overhead. Beldon came into view. He was bellowing. I couldn't understand the words, only that they were too loud. I winced and tried to tell him to lower his voice, that I was all right.
A gurgling, wheezing sound. From me. From my chest. A great weight had settled upon it.
Beldon's face was twisted into an awful mixture of rage and grief and terror and helplessness. What was wrong? What had happened?
The weight on me was crushing. My God, I couldn't breathe.
He put his arms under my shoulders and lifted me a little. He was trying to help me get air. But nothing happened. I clawed at my throat. At my chest. He pushed my hands off, but they'd already found it. They came away smeared with blood. Far too much blood.
I choked, tried to speak. The stuff flooded up my throat like hot vomit and spilled from my nose and mouth. I was drowning in it. In my own blood.
Beldon was talking to me. Yelling, perhaps. Weeping? Why... ?
Good God, no. It can't be.
My body thrashed, out of control. The weight on my chest was spreading, crushing me into the earth. I had to fight it or be smashed into a pulp like a worm.
Beldon, damn him, was trying to hold me still. He didn't under
stand.
Air. Please, God. Just a little air...
I breathed in blood instead. Sputtered it out again. Beldon was covered with it. Like that dream of Nora...
The memory whipped from my mind. I twitched and struggle to clear my clogged throat.
Elizabeth. Father...
Just a little air. Just a little that I might see them once more.
Fight it.
But my efforts produced only a bubbling, gagging noise. I was already panicked; to hear and know that it was coming from me....
Fight it.
The pain I hadn't realized I felt suddenly ebbed. The weight on me eased.
Fight...
Eyelids heavy. Couldn't blink, though. Couldn't focus on anything. The light and leaves above blurred and merged and danced together.... it.
A fluttering convulsion took me. Beldon cried my name in a hopeless wail.
But I was unable to answer as a soft stillness settled upon me. I lingered just at the threshold of waking and sleep. He was shaking me, trying to rouse me. It should have worked, but all that was me was in retreat. It was like rolling over against cold morning air and pulling the blanket down more snugly to seize another few minutes of blissful, warm rest.
Beldon stopped the shaking. I pushed the sleep off briefly, wondering what troubled him. He was yet within view, but his head was bowed as for prayer.
The pain was all gone now. No air yet, but I didn't seem to need it. The weight was also absent. Good. Good.
Nothing left to do now but give in to the sleep. Which I did.
I woke up smoothly, quickly, with none of the usual attendant grogginess. The room was like ink. Must have been well past moon set. That, or Jericho had closed the shutters of my window and drawn the curtains. I should have been baking from the day's
lingering summer heat, but was not. Neither warm nor cold, the only feeling intruding on my general awareness was that my bed was uncomfortably hard.
Damnation. I must have passed out drunk on the floor. It wouldn't be the first time.
But... I hadn't really gotten drunk since leaving Cambridge. I was home. Surely Jericho would have taken care of me.
The back of my head rolled from side to side on the wooden planks, each irregularity of the bone against an unyielding surface made apparent by my movement. Damn the man. Even if my drunkenness offended him, he could have at least spared a pillow for me.
My shoulders pressed down heavily as well. And my backside. And my heels. I'd grow numb and stiff if I stayed like this.
He'd thought to give me a blanket, but had drawn it completely up over my head. I was having trouble pulling it away from my face... I could not pull it away from my face. When I tried to move my arms, my elbows thumped into-
What? The sides of a box? Where in God's name was I?
My eyes had been open through this. Or so I thought. It was difficult to tell, it was so black. They were definitely open now. In the cramped space I inched one hand up and felt them to be sure. Cheek. Lashes. Lids. Outer corner. Blink.
Nothing. I saw nothing.
It was the damned blanket. I tugged and came to realize it was wrapped around me and somehow tied over the top of my head like a...
No. That was ridiculous.
Sweet God, but it was quiet. I could only hear my own stirrings in what I now accepted as a small, enclosed space- the rustle of cloth, the scrape of shoe heels, even the soft creak of my joints-but absolutely nothing else.
But there had to be some sound. It was always there, even when one did not listen, there were hundreds of things to be heard. Wind. Bird song. The whisper of leaf and grass blade. One's own pulse, for God's sake.
Silence. Perfect. Unremitting.
Even my heart?
No. That was impossible. It was there-had to be; I was just too alarmed now to hear it.
I pushed against the blanket or whatever it was that covered me and promptly encountered the lid of the box I was in. Oliver and some of his cronies were having a game with me. Waiting until I was drunk, they'd put me in here for a bad joke.
But I was not in Cambridge. My mind was seeking any answer but the truth. I already knew it, or thought I did, but to face it...
My shoulders strained and muscles popped as I pushed on the lid. The bastards had nailed it down. The thing wouldn't budge. I'd be damned before I gave them the satisfaction of hearing me call for help. Oliver, I decided, had had no part in this. It was too spiteful for him.
Warburton, perhaps.
Warburton, white around the eyes and looking drunk. But he hadn't been drunk.
Warburton, curled up on the floor, weeping.
Nora, looking down at him.
Nora, looking at me.
Nora, talking to me. Telling me all the things that I must forget.
I shook away that memory as if it were rain streaming in my face. Just as persistently, it continued to flood down.
Rain. Yes, that was right.
It had been raining. Cold. Icy. Tony Warburton striding away into the night. And when I saw him again he was drunk and repentant. But he hadn't really been drunk. He'd gotten me over to Nora's and when she'd walked in, he'd...
No. That was only in a bad dream.
To the devil with them. I could not bear the silence and darkness any longer. My voice roared out-
And went no farther than the confines of the box. The flat sound of it rolling back on itself told me as much.
Beldon had also called for help. He and I had been... I'd just seen the Finch boy raise his rifle. But he couldn't have-that simply could not have happened to me. I couldn't believe, didn't dare believe. To do so meant that I was... they wouldn't have done this to me.
I was alive. The dead aren't trapped in the ground like this; God would surely spare the worst of sinners that torment. I could still think, move, speak, even smell. The odor of musty cloth and new wood and damp earth were making me sick.
Earth. In the ground. Trapped in the ground.
I heaved against the lid, calling for help. I did this many times, keeping the unthinkable at bay a little longer.
Useless. My arms dropped to my chest, drained, shaking with weakness.
Now I knew without doubt, without any deceiving fancies, exactly where I was, and no yell, no scream, no plea, no sobbing prayer would free me from this, my grave.
No. No. Nonononononono.
My thrashing body suddenly broke free and rolled down a slight grading. Facedown. Faceup. Stop.
I was... on the ground. Open ground. Trees. Their leaves whispered to one another. What a sweet song for my starved ears. I could still smell earth, but it wasn't as cloying as before. It was diluted by the other scents carried on the wind. Clover, grass, and a skunk, by God. I never thought I'd welcome that pungency.
Able to use my arms again, I finally tore away the cloth shroud binding me.
Shroud. I sat up and forced myself to look at it. My shroud. Yellow with age, for it had been stored in the attic since my birth, as was the custom. We all had one, Father, Elizabeth, Mother, all the servants, all our friends. Death was always around us, from a summer fever to a bad fall from a horse. One prepared for death as soon as one was born. One had to accept it, for there was no other alternative.
Nora, my mind whispered uneasily.
I was... in a graveyard. The one I passed each Sunday going in to hear the sermon.
But I could not be.
I pushed the impossibility away. It kept returning.
I pushed away the burgeoning fear. It held back for the moment.
An unbidden image came to me of standing at the edge of the drop-off, of noting without alarm the puff of smoke across the way, of not knowing what it meant, of falling, of pain, of blood...
Without any thought behind the action, I began unbuttoning my waistcoat. My fingers moved on their own and it was with mild surprise that I looked down to see my clothes opened and my chest bared. The wound that some hidden part of my mind
&nbs
p; expected to find was there, right over my heart, but closed up and half-healed. The surrounding skin was bruised and red, but not from inflammation. There was no pain. Not now.
Nora.
I grew very cold. Not from the soft air flowing past me, but from the stark memory of her slumping down, run through with my sword-stick. It had caught her in the heart. The blood covered her dress. Warburton had laughed and turned upon me. My dream, my nightmare, had been true. Nora had... had made me forget everything.
P N Elrod - Barrett 1 - Red Death Page 22
